In recent years, there has been an enormous increase in the amount of digital media available online. Services, such as Apple's iTunes® for example, enable users to legally purchase and download music. Other services, such as Yahoo!® Music Unlimited and RealNetwork's Rhapsody®, provide access to millions of songs for a monthly subscription fee. YouTube® provides users access to video media. As a result, media has become much more accessible to consumers worldwide. Due to the large amount of accessible digital media, recommendation technologies are emerging as an important enabler to assist users in identifying and navigating large databases of available media. Recommendation technologies allow peer users, also known as “recommenders,” to recommend media to other peer users, also known as “recipients” or “friends.” Recommendations are useful to help users identify and select media of interest for usage and/or play.
When a media recommendation is received by a recipient, the media recommendation may be placed in a recipient's playlist. The playlist is an ordered list of media used by the recipient's device to control the order of use or play of the media. For example, if a received media recommendation is to be used or played third, the media recommendation may be placed third in the playlist. In this instance, the media recommendation will be played behind the media listed first and second in the playlist. As a convenience to the recipient, placement of media recommendations in the playlist may be carried out automatically according to a scoring system. In this manner, the recipient does not have to spend substantial time manually ordering the playlist, which may contain large amounts of media. Media recommendations can automatically be placed in the recipient's playlist according to the score. The score is typically based on the recipient's preferences for media. Media more closely matching the recipient's preferences are scored higher and thus placed higher in the playlist. Media recommendations are continuously scored as they are received and placed in the playlist according to their score. Thus, the playlist can represent an ongoing ordered list of media according to the recipient's preferences.
Recommendation systems are useful for facilitating sharing of media. However, recommendation systems provide minimal interaction between recommenders and recipients. A recommender can recommend a media item to a recipient, but the recommender does not control the order of placement in the recipient's playlist. Thus, the recipient may use or play a received media recommendation much later than desired by the recommender. The recommender has no influence or control over whether a recipient experiences a media recommendation sooner rather than later. Accordingly, a need exists for a media recommendation system and method that allows a media recommendation to be prioritized over natural scoring systems and methods. This further increases the likelihood that a recipient will experience the media recommendation sooner rather than later.